Chapter 20
Corrigan corralled me before I could get out of there. He picked up his jacket and put it around me and said, “You don’t want to steal my jacket now do you?”
“Then take your jacket.”
“Nope. Wind is picking up and where it is is just fine. Come over here and sit down.”
I heard Robson lean over and say, “See what I mean?”
She whispered back, “You sure there’s nothing sexual to it?”
“Nothing like that. It’s the baby. Corey … look, he just can’t stand the idea of anything happening to a baby after losing his own wife and child early on. The girl seems to … well … she doesn’t trust anyone but she and Corey … er … communicate on a level that bridges the issues they both have. But you can’t say anything Birdy.”
“I wouldn’t. Knew the family … or some of the kids in the family anyway.”
“She says she has no family.”
“Immediate family no; they’re among the confirmed dead and are buried in the town memorial. She might have extended family, but I can’t say for certain; they made some pretty big waves for a while. There was a man – I think he would be her uncle – and the accusations flew back and forth, and he had some connections and forced an investigation that turned over some rocks people didn’t want turned over. Caused a schism in the town, sanctions from the then governor’s office, and a lot of hard feelings on both sides. I don’t know the whole story myself but there was lots of speculation. For that reason alone I’ll keep my mouth shut; it could cause another schism if not worse. And you keep her close, if I recognize her there are a few others I could name that will too. It’s the mismatched eyes, notice the baby has them too.”
Uncle Ty had tried to find me? Had made a stink enough that it got the whole town in trouble? I was still processing that information when Robson told Corrigan that he was going to make sure Ms. Lathrop got back to town.
“Time to get back,” Corrigan said to me.
I looked up at him and asked, “Does this change things? Do you not want to help me take care of Annie because of the trouble?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know or I wouldn’t risk asking and making you mad,” I answered quietly.
He sighed. “No. It doesn’t make me not want to take care of Annie. It does change a few things but not the way you’re thinking.”
We were both quiet for a while as we hiked back to the subdivision. On the porch I opened my mouth to ask him something but his shook his head and he had us go around the house and then down into the basement. Corrigan checked the house over and then locked the basement door and barred it – something he had added the night before – and then locked and barred the basement window and then turned me and showed he wanted to go into the bomb shelter and he then closed and locked that door as well. I was prepared for things to change when he said, “It’s warm enough you don’t need the jacket but go ahead and slip that sweater thing on that you wear. Then see if the baby will play in the crib so you and I can have a talk.”
He surprised me when he asked, “You okay?”
“Uh …”
“Seeing someone from your past. Learning what your family tried to do.”
“Oh. Well, I guess coming back I figured I might see someone. It’s just Ms. Lathrop was the school nurse over at the middle school and there were all sorts of stories about girls that had to go see the Nurse. Daddy called her a ‘progressive’ and she supported the schools giving out birth control without parents knowing about it. Daddy said there wasn’t a thing Ms. Lathrop could tell me that Momma couldn’t tell me better, plus Ms. Lathrop hadn’t had kids so only thought she knew about the responsibility and stuff like that. I think he was afraid that the school was trying to take over being parents to the kids instead of letting parents be parents to the kids. He didn’t like it because there were too many kids and not enough teachers to be real parents. Or that’s the kind of thing he and Momma would say when they would start talking about it.”
“And your family?”
“You mean do I want to go find Uncle Ty and Aunt Miranda? No. They lived in another town. And Aunt Miranda could be cranky and snobby. She isn’t … wasn’t … isn’t … whatever … she isn’t a bad person, just Momma said she was a rich man’s daughter and enjoyed it a bit too much to make my parents very comfortable around her. Her father and brother were also kinda mean to us because we weren’t rich. I mean they used to give me nice things but Ricky – my brother – said it was all their kids’ second-hand stuff that they didn’t want anymore. I couldn’t tell, it still looked all nice and new to me. But I can’t think that it would be too comfortable going to find them. Uncle Ty would want me to live there and Aunt Miranda would have to say yes or it would look bad only Aunt Miranda would be embarrassed which would make her act weird when no one was around and she and Uncle Ty would just have more reason to fight. That’s why Uncle Ty always came to visit by himself.”
I looked up at him and added, “I know my family wasn’t perfect. Looking back maybe they … they were prideful in their own way just like Aunt Miranda was prideful in hers. But I know it killed Daddy to see what happened to Momma and Ricky … and me. Maybe Uncle Ty figured that out and it made him mad. Uncle Ty was Daddy’s big brother and he took being big brother seriously and sometimes it made him act … not the best. And maybe they think that after all this time I have to be dead, or maybe they hope I am because they can’t stand thinking about what happened or about me living with what happened. All I know is that I’m not who I was before I was stolen away to hell by the Boogey Man. And I’ll never be who I could have been. And I have Annie to think of first. And I can’t say that going to find a family that might not even be around anymore is what is best for Annie. So … so … so if … so if you want things to change to make it worth your while to help take care of Annie I won’t run off.”
Corrigan sighed and then slid down the wall to sit on the other end of the mattress. After a moment he said, “Traumatized you are, but you are also deaf as a doornail Clarity though I suppose I mustn’t blame you. It will take time for you to be able to trust what I’m saying … damn that demon from hell for his perversion. I am not out to get you into my bed as a trade for taking care of you and Annie. I’m not going to go over all the why’s and how come’s. It is just what it is.”
I had to get up and change Annie and that gave me time to think over what Corrigan had said and then get brave enough to ask him, “Then why lock us in?”
“Because we need to talk so now that Annie seems set to go down for a nap, come sit back down and let’s talk.” I did as he said. “It turns out that most of the men want to take what they’ve been paid out and go find themselves.”
“Huh? Don’t they already know where they’re at?”
Corrigan chuckled and said, “You’d think wouldn’t you. We lost quite a few over the winter to the wanderlust. Picked up a few that wouldn’t have survived otherwise. But now it seems all but a couple want to go find what’s left of their families … if there is anything or anyone left. Of the remainder, all but Rob and two others want to go work on the territorial job of rebuilding various infrastructure components … like road and bridge repair, create central health care facilities, salvage what can be salvaged from museums and universities. I guess they think of it as a regular paycheck and a way to normalize.”
“But you don’t.
“Nope. And Rob would rather try and make his own start here where he knows he can do some good in the vet clinic at the town market. And maybe put down other kinds of roots as well.”
“And you?”
“I never was one to work in town. And … I’d like to take a vacation from wandering as well.”
“Would you not wander and stay here with Annie and me? Please?”
He looked at me surprised. “You jump to the chase pretty fast.”
“I know it makes me sound like a bad female type person but if you don’t want to wander around, at least for a while, and all of your stuff is already here, and you are serious about wanting to make sure Annie grows up … welllllll … we can do that here. The basement is snug and dry. You already built your greenhouse and you said you liked working in one at your commune. Maybe Annie and I can be your tribe – your gang – until the others get done fooling around and come back. You can boss us around so you don’t have to go out and find someone new to boss around. And I can do stuff … make stuff, build stuff, forage stuff, grow stuff, sew stuff … and if you have to go out and be around people you can go to the market and trade the things I make and that way Annie can have stuff without me having to go and be where people might know me from up on the mountain or from before.” When he didn’t say anything I added, “I don’t mean to sound bad.”
“You don’t sound bad Clarity. I understand what you’re saying, and I think I understand why, you just surprised me. I would have thought the last thing you would have wanted was some man around.”
“I don’t want some man around. But you’re a strange man and you’re you so that’s different. I don’t understand why, don’t want to analyze it to death, why it is different, but it is. Mostly I … I know something could happen to me and I have to … I mean … Annie. I was always scared that if something happened to me a new boogey man would get Annie. With you here … whether I’m here or not there won’t be a new boogey man … there isn’t room for a boogey man with you here and you wouldn’t let one come in.”
“No I won’t.”
“Will you want to bring in a woman like Robson is thinking of doing?”
“Rob is going to give town a try but wants to keep the house here as a backup. We’ll have to see how that works out.”
“But he’s your friend.”
“He’s my brother-in-law … common law version.”
“Huh?!”
“He and my sister split when he sided with me against Laurel – they were common law and didn’t have a government license, so splitting wasn’t complicated as it could have been. And there had started to be other problems between them which added to it. They didn’t have kids together, though my sister has a couple from her first husband. Rob can’t have kids … his parents were anti-vax types and he caught mumps as a teenager from some migrants that had been allowed to make camp on the farm and now he can’t have kids. Do I need to explain that to you?”
“No,” I said, not the least embarrassed. My own parents had been middle-of-the-road as far as vaccinations went and always explained the pros and cons of it so Ricky and I wouldn’t get drawn into the debate at school. They didn’t give me as many shots as most babies had early on but I was all caught up by the time I started school. I was scared that Annie couldn’t have any shots and what that might mean for her down the road.
“Where’d you go?”
“Sorry. Was thinking. What happens to Annie … and other babies like Annie … that don’t get their shots?”
“Sometimes bad things so we need to keep an eye out for any outbreaks. But there’s things going around they don’t have vaccinations for so we’d do that one way or the other.”
“Okay.” And with my next breath I asked, “Are you going to stay here?”
“I think it would be best. You don’t have a problem with that?”
“No. You’re strange but it appears you aren’t a bad strange.”
“Well, then it’s settled. I was going to give you time to think about it so you wouldn’t be scared but you don’t really sound scared.”
“I might … um … sometimes at night until I get used to it being you over on the bunk but that’s not your fault. Or do you want an upstairs room so you can have a woman?”
“If I need a woman as you put it,” he said sounding a little angry. “I’ll go to town. And that’s enough of that talk. Now mind me and rest while Annie naps. There’ll be enough work when you two wake up.”